Old Folks Home

It’s interesting, trying to go home again, especially when we’ve been told by whatever very famous writer is was that we can’t go home again. Fair enough, but it sure is fun trying. My friends and I used to go to the Ocoee river all the time. Since then, there’s been kids born, careers changed, marriages ended, lives lost to the eternal tide, and more. And still, when we see one another, we always say we need to do another ‘Old Timer’s Trip’. We laughingly call it that, even though we don’t think of ourselves, or one another, as old.

Then again, I was twenty eight when we started kayaking the Ocoee.

Now, we return every few years. It’s a long drive, going back to being twenty eight. And I get lost on the way of course. But it’s gotta be tried.

I do another comic strip, The Buckets, that’s sort of about getting old and becoming your parents. I made the point in it once that while it’s not fair that a kid can’t wait to be 18, but what’s REALLY not fair is that now I can’t wait to be 18 either, and it’s never going to happen.

But there’s still the occasional Old Timer’s Trip. And that may be good enough.